As introduced here, these Warm Recollections are random cullings from thirty years of notes files…
You never feel the mind and body split so clearly as when you’re grieving. The mind says it cannot possibly be interested in food: not as some vainglorious proclamation to the crowd — a “look at me and how sad I am” boast — but simply because the idea of eating seems genuinely irrelevant. When the world is that broken, eating seems alien. The body meanwhile moves the fork from the plate to your mouth and back again. It feels absurd, it feels inappropriate, but the body wins — effortlessly. The body knows the score. It doesn’t matter how sad you are, how much of a betrayal it feels, how badly the fabric of reality seems broken. You eat, or you die. You eat, or you end up in the same state of the person you are mourning.
“To be loved for what one is — that is the greatest exception”.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Those books and objects and even items of clothing that represent a hope or intention. The book on Italian you bought; the paint set your partner bought you because you expressing an interest in finally having a try at it; the jacket that’s not quite you… but you think should be. All unused. And when you look at them they make you feel a little guilty, and melancholy, as if you’ve failed either yourself, or some more idealized version — the you that you think you should be.
People who almost never apologize, and if they do, only do so in offense: “I’m sorry I did x, but…” followed by a restatement of their initial position, showing they haven’t budged, don’t feel bad about whatever they’re pretending to apologize for, and aren’t sorry at all.
Sounds obvious, but different things rhyme in different languages. In French, ‘dire’ and ‘écrire’ rhyme — so you can have lyrics like “Comment j’pourrais te dire, comment j’pourrais t’écrire” [Marie-Chantal Toupin] — “What could/can I tell you, what can I write”.
You can say that in English, but it won’t rhyme — so it won’t be in songs as often.
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I don't think my body has a great survival instinct. When I'm grieving, my body refuses to take in food, and my mind has to take over and trick it into eating via consuming liquids.
The way #2 and #3 are related 😢
Re #4: More infuriating are the people who, instead of owning their actions, deny they did something, and then proceed to explain exactly why they did the thing they claim they didn't do, as if the thing being fully justifiable in their mind nullifies the reality that they did it.
That person I should be, almost am but not quite. Oh I have so many things like that. Love this.